a fireball that exploded on the city's east side. here you're going to see it happening at the con ed substation along the east river. fortunately no one was hurt in that explosion but it did knock out power to about a quarter of a million people here in new york city. a spokesman for con ed says that what they're experiencing tonight is the largest storm-related outage in con ed's history. in new jersey, the nation's oldest nuclear power plant was put on alert tonight after rising floodwaters there. that is the oyster creek nuclear power plant. it was already in a regularly scheduled outage, but u.s. nuclear regulators say that they're continuing to monitor the situation there. now, the death toll, there are at least 13 confirmed fatalities because of this storm so far. that number, of course, could rise especially as this cleanup and recovery effort heads into the early morning hours. i'm chris jansing. you are watching msnbc's continuing live coverage of

superstorm sandy. we are going to be live throughout the night. we have reporters all across the region. and msnbc meteorologist bill karins on hand here in new york. now, as of 11:30 pennsylvania's utility company reported more than 1 million people were without power in that state. the "associated press" reports that's about 20% of the state's electric customers. joining me now is philadelphia mayor michael nutter. mayor, it's good to talk to you again. we've been talking about how fluid the situation is. you and i talked about two hours ago. since then i understand one person was killed after a tree fell on a house in berks county. what's going on in philly? >> in philadelphia we do have some significant, for us, significant power outage. about 40,000 customers without power. pico energy is our provider. they do an excellent job under these circumstances, getting people back online. about 400,000 in the region, and

so, again, that's a significant number, but i am quite confident that they will chop that number down over the course of the next few days. our primary concerns are about flooding, the heavy winds, continued rain, and treacherous conditions for people. obviously we've been encouraging our citizens to stay in at home, stay off the streets, stay out of your car, and this is not the kind of weather you want to be out in. the city was closed on monday, will be closed on tuesday. schools canceled. colleges and university, many of them not having classes as well. mass transit system is shut down. and certainly won't be operational for the bulk of the day on tuesday. but all in all, philadelphians are rallying around each other. we've not experienced any significant incidents. we have had some structural challenges and at least one fire

that i'm aware of. it should soon be under control. so you put it all together, this is a big, bad storm, but philadelphians are rough and tough and have responded in kind. our plan is primarily working, and that comes from good preparations and a great group of public employees who are dedicated to this kind of work. >> i know major bridges were shut down. so were some major interstates. will that continue? or to you expect traffic to be flowing again tomorrow? >> that actually was a decision by the pennsylvania department of transportation. penndot, under the jurisdiction of governor corbett. i think at the time it was certainly the right decision, but obviously to try to get the city and the region back in business after the storm damage overnight, which we're anticipating and the assessment in the morning, obviously we want to get roads opened as quickly as possible but also as safely as possible. >> one of the challenges, obviously, any city has in a

situation like this, is getting the people who are necessary to get the city back up and running to the places where they need to be. how confident are you that you're going to have the staff that you need to get started and get moving tomorrow morning? >> we're confident about that, and, again, primarily only our emergency responders, emergency personnel, are scheduled in tomorrow. we do need to start making those assessments. once the storm finally clears through. but, again, we're anticipating possible flood damage on the delaware and we have to monitor the schuylkill as well. trees down, power out. all these factors are part of the large cleanup effort. obviously want to get the city back up and running and business as quickly as possible, but you're absolutely right. getting even the emergency personnel in can be a challenge. we have a system in place with a designated pickup and drop-off points that we're utilizing.

this is experience from the past that's helping us in this current environment. >> philadelphia mayor michael nutter. thank you so much. again, and good luck as daylight comes. >> thank you. >> and you guys are going to have a lot of work to do. the federal government has declared a number of states of emergency including an emergency in pennsylvania. this afternoon the president said officials would be ready to help as soon as the storm passes. >> we have prepositioned assets so that fema personnel are working closely with state and local governments. we're making sure that food and water and emergency generation is available for those communities that are going to be hardest hit. transportation is going to be tied up for a long time and probably the most significant impact for a lot of people in addition to flooding is going to getting power back on. the fact is a lot of emergency crews are not going to be able to get into position to start restoring power until some of these winds have died down. you know, this is going to be a

big storm. it's going to be a difficult storm. the great thing about america is when we go through tough times like this, we all pull together. we look out for our friends. we look out for our neighbors. >> the president was asked what this means for the campaign. obviously we are looking at being just a week away from the election day, and he said that's not the important thing right now. the important thing is essentially to take care of business. he had suspended his campaign today. he has no campaign events tomorrow. mitt romney had suspended as well, although he says he is going to be in ohio with something called a storm relief event tomorrow. but obviously this also has some serious implications for both of the candidates in a race that is so tight right now. both of them having to take a back seat to the coverage of sandy. so let's, again, check in with nbc meteorologist bill karins. bill, what's the latest? >> the power outages continue to happen. we have rescues ongoing from the high tide cycle which we're still recovering from.

fire departments are out there trying to rescue people in boats in some cases and just a very ugly scene, and that's what you'd expect. the historic storm that just, you know, had such a large winfield. it was just able to take so much water. to like a big huge hand in the bathtub and push it right on the shore when it came in today. that's when all the problems occurred from manhattan southward. you can only imagine the billions of dollars that this storm is going to cost us. it will be interesting to see where it goes down in the history books. first things first. we'll worry about that when everyone is safe and the cleanup has begun. we have the potential for more problems. as far as wind gusts, downed trees. and maybe a little more flooding. the winds have come down. this is the lowest they've been in new york city for a while. 38 miles per hour. same with you in philly. notice it's still a pretty strong all the green on the map shows you where it's raining. the darker green is the rain. the yellow is heavier than that.

there are bands of rain wrapping around this thing going through northern jersey and nice, solid band through northern virginia, the baltimore, d.c. area, right into delaware. you're not done with your rainfall yet. the winds are going to continue to howl. we're not bad right now. 20 to 30 mile per hour winds in the delmarva. rainfall totals were impressive. 3 to 4 inches in general around philadelphia. and 5 to 6 inches down around washington, d.c. you notice richmond, you just got brushed by light rain right now. your friends in charleston, west virginia, and all through the mountains, look at that white expand. that's snow, folks. we're in a full-fledged snowstorm in the middle of west virginia. it was above 4,000 feet but now it's just about everywhere as the cold air gets wrapped in to what was a hurricane that is now more like a snowstorm as we go through halloween. looks like there will be snow on the pumpkins and everything else in west virginia along with downed trees. not all the leaves were off. there are so many concerns out there. you could go here all night

talking about all the hardships people are going to have to endure. it's just -- it was an unbelievable storm. it was really well predicted, too, which is scary. even, chris, the power outages were predicted to be somewhere between 5 million and maybe 8 million. what did you say, almost 6 million now? >> about 6 million people. 670,000 just in new york, which is new york city, which is the largest in the history of this city. >> that's the scary thing. four days in advance we thought this was possible and the forecast was very accurate and we still had, what, almost 15 or so deaths and all these catastrophes out there and power outages. just shows you sometimes with so many people in the way, doesn't matter how prepared we are. >> we should also say thank you, bill karins. we was telling you about the snow in west virginia. the president signed an emergency declaration there which means more federal help for the folks of west virginia who will surely need it. throughout the evening we've been trying to take you to different places and sometimes it's just a matter of safety when we can safely get our

correspondents who are out on the scene to report to you. wnbc reporter, harry, joins us from eaten town, new jersey. give us the geography for people who don't know exactly where that is. where is eaton town? >> reporter: eatontown is by long branch along the jersey shore. we were in long branch, five miles away from here, all day yesterday, watching the waves crashing up on to the boardwalk in long branch. it was very dramatic, very dangerous. and the wind actually has not died down at all in eatontown, central jersey, right smack in the middle of jersey closer to the shore. as i mentioned, the winds are still picking up here. the rain is falling. there's so much damage. we're actually outside our hotel right now. we have to go to three different hotels two days ago to get a room because all the people who were evacuated from their homes along the jersey shore came to these hotels as a safe hahaven.

so far it's been working although power is out and we're not even able to get out of the parking lot. there's a barricade there due to the flooding and due to all the other damage. definitely pitch black around us. all we're seeing and hearing is the wind. not really knowing exactly how bad the damage is around long branch. i know when we came back here about ten hours ago, or i'd say more like eight hours ago it was flooding and there were, you know, power lines down, trees down all throughout this area in new jersey. definitely carnage and definitely very disappointing to see what's gone on here in this area. >> harry, thank you for that update. in eatontown, new jersey. we've also just gotten in the first video from nyu medical center. we've been telling you about the evacuations there. and we will have a live report from the scene, the very latest on some critical care patients, more than 200 of them having to be moved after a power outage affected that hospital. we'll be right back. customer erin swenson bought from us online today.

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some pediatric patients and critical care patients who had to be evacuated when the backup generator fail. we're on 29th street and 1st avenue. everything from here on down has been in the dark for many hours tonight as a result of the storm. we understand there was a transformer fire at a con edison station in lower manhattan which could have knocked everybody out of power. it's important to point out there has been no chaos, no panic. it has been a very orderly transfer of patients here from the nyu university medical center. they also had intermittent telephone service and they've been letting people know that they have not been able to contact the loved ones of these patients as they're leaving. but they're leaving that up to the hospitals that they are being transferred to. because the service here is so intermittent. so they're taking care of these patients by moving them to other facilities where they to have power. chris? >> now, we're seeing all the emergency lights behind you. other than that, in that area,

there's no power at all, is there? >> reporter: there is no power, chris. it's very dangerous out here because it's very dark. and we've been driving around. there are tree limbs that are down. some awnings on top of stores are down. we've seen street signs and bus signs that are down. and it's very dangerous. so people have been out curiously surveying the damage but there are a lot of police who are trying to encourage people as the mayor of new york city, mike bloomberg said, it is better to be safe and stay inside because you don't really know what's going on out here on the streets. you can't see it because there's no power, there are no street lights. it's dark. >> rehema ellis with one of the very important stories that is coming out of this. and, again, there will be far more as we get into the night. and into the early morning hours. and we start to see packetexact extent of the damage. a lot in the state of maryland. joining me, quentin banks, the spokesman for maryland emergency management. one of the most telling

statements i saw coming out of maryland is that in some places the water was so deep that emergency military humvees couldn't even get through. give us your update on the situation in maryland tonight. >> well, our town, on maryland's eastern shore had tidal surges of 3 to 5 feet and in many instances forced the evacuation of many of the residents. some have actually gone to shelters while others are sheltering in place on the second floor of their homes. we're also very concerned about many of our critical care facilities. we have 24 of them. and all of them are on generators. all of these are located across the state of maryland. they include hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. >> i understand 1,200 people were spending the night in 41 shelters. what else can you tell us about people? do you know if they're trapped? what's the 911 situation been like? >> well, we've had one fatality. we had a lady in montgomery

county who hit an object after hydroplaning in her automobile. the fatality was confirmed by the state medical examiner's office. >> obviously the driving is treacherous. i see a report here of four tractor trailers becoming entangled on i-68 in western maryland, which closed on the westbound lanes. what's the best advice for people, is much of the state going to be essentially shut down tomorrow? >> well, the governor personally advised people to stay inside and stay off the roads. coming into work this evening that seems to be the case in most instances. >> so you think people are going to heed the calls, most businesses will be closed tomorrow? >> yes. >> quentin banks from the emergency management of maryland. thank you so much for being with us and we do appreciate you taking the time tonight to talk

to us. >> quite welcome. >> again, many states have been declared a state of emergency. fema had set up already just anticipating this storm. places where they can become active, especially tomorrow morning, again, as the sun comes up and we start to see the extent of the damage. nearly 6 million people across this country without power. most of it obviously right here on the eastern seaboard. some going into the mid-atlantic states. and a major, major snowstorm in west virginia as well. msnbc's live coverage of hurricane sandy continues after this. ♪ [ male announcer ] jill and her mouth have lived a great life. but she has some dental issues she's not happy about. so i introduced jill to crest pro-health for life. selected for people over 50. pro-health for life is a toothpaste that defends against tender, inflamed gums, sensitivity and weak enamel. conditions people over 50 experience. crest pro-health for life.

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as with many aspects of this story which continues to develop it is hard to get a good handle on the number of people killed. we have tragic news coming to us from westchester county, north of us here in new york. we're told two boys in north salem were killed when a tree fell on their house. an 11-year-old, jack, and his neighbor, michael robson. day say a large tree came down, broke into the residence. it struck and killed not just the two boys but two other people who are 15 and 13. two other children were injured. we are told that throughout this region, most of the deaths we have seen have come from falling trees including a firefighter who was responding to a call in easton, connecticut. a tree fell on his car.

he had a cardiac arrest and died. there is also a man in queens who was in his house when a tree fell. there have been people outside who have been hit by falling trees. so a very dangerous situation which is why people are being told to stay in their homes and stay away from windows. we've also been following what's been going on along the coast of new jersey. hard hit. it's where sandy made landfall first. let's go back to cape may, new jersey, where nbc's jay gray is there. how are things looking? we spoke last hour. any change there? >> chris, i'd love to tell you the winds have dropped off, but they have not. they are still howling here. still swirling. and really still driving at 50 miles an hour or more with gusts well above that. look, you make an excellent point there when you talk about people involved and trees falling. i don't want people who may hear this to be lulled into any kind of clomplacency that this storm made landfall.

as we talked about last hour, it passed here several hours ago. we're seeing the strongest effects of sandy right now. so any thought it's safe to go out and take a look around is, frankly, just ridiculous at this point. we talked to the police chief here who says he won't get his men out until the storm is completely clear. if it's not safe for the first responders, it's certainly not safe for anyone who decided to ride this storm out, chris. >> all right. thank you. jay gray, who will continue to update us from beautiful victorian town of cape may, new jersey, but they're going to be waking up to a lot of damage and it's impossible to say how much it will be. this is shaping up to be one of the costliest natural disasters in u.s. history. and our coverage will continue right after this.

we're coming up on half past the hour and the situation still dreadful in new jersey. we know that that's where sandy first made landfall in atlantic city. and much of the boardwalk there was submerged. water was thigh high on the streets of seabright, new

jersey. that's a three mile sliver of a town that is where the shrewsbury river joins the ocean. then earlier tonight, i spoke with brian thompson with our nbc affiliate wnbc in new york. he has been reporting from seaside heights, new jersey, tonight. >> reporter: i'm cold, i'm miserable and it doesn't look very good at all, chris. i can tell you that just a couple miles away here on the jersey shore, 13 homes burned down in one little cluster, a shopping center, strip mall burned in berkeley township a couple miles behind me. we have a lot of power lines that are starting to, look right here, these are getting a lot closer. they're starting to drop right there toward us which is not a good sign. we have reports of four deaths right now in new jersey. i don't know if you've reported that earlier, chris, or not. two people in a car accident in morris county. a tree falling into a house in

passaic county. a tree falling on a pedestrian in bergen county. none of these are good reports, of course. then you have the situation in atlantic city where you had people in evacuation shelters on the island that atlantic city occupies and the waters came up, washed out a big swatch of atlantic city. we don't know the status of the casino hotels yet, but the governor is extremely angry. in a news conference earlier today we had the nuclear plant oyster creek which had to declare an unusual event just a little bit ago. that's a few miles away from here in lacey township. the oldest nuclear plant in the nation. the unusual event was, fwguess what, high waters. fortunately the whole unit was already offline for maintenance so there's no particular threat right now, but it's still not good news for nuclear plant that provides 9% of the electricity to the state of new jersey which right now could use all the electricity it could get.

if they could get the power lines up, which they can't. instead we have hundreds of thousands of people, probably close to a million or more people would be my guess at this point. who are without power in this state because of all the trees that have gone down. all the transformers that have exploded all over the place or caught fire. arked. whatever the terminology may be for whatever happened in those particular incidences. you had a hospital up in edgewater, weehawken area on the hudson river that is without power. they were trying to get emergency generators in as quickly as possible because the generators they had didn't work or were flooded. they don't know if they're going to have to evacuate that hospital like they had to do the one in new york city. you had a police station in cliffside park that had the roof blown off. they had to bring in a mobile command post just so they could man the police station in that community in bergen county. how's that for a list? >> yeah, i mean, it's

unbelievable what's going on there. really a once in a lifetime type of mammoth storm that has hit new jersey and we won't see a lot of the damage it's done obviously until daylight, but you've been there, brian. give us a sense of what it was like, the worst of it. we mentioned before it really made landfall around 8:00 tonight in atlantic city. >> reporter: yeah, i think at least by 8:00. it may have been a little bit earlier than that actually. the winds were building up all day long. i guess the best way to describe it, i started off my day this morning. i took a photographer because i heard or i had a feeling there were going to be problems in ordley beach, the next community up. there were. there was water overwashing the dunes that had broken through the dunes. debris on the street. then i went over to a nightclub a couple blocks away and that had been half destroyed by the surf. when i came back here into town, i must have picked up a nail

because i got that old tire warning light. i got the folks at the seaside heights police department, fire department and dpw to rescue me and patch my tire. i got to give a shout-out to nose folks because they really saved me. there's no goodyear or firestone store around to help me today. i guarantee you that. standing out in those winds 40 miles an hour, 45 miles an hour on the boardwalk with the spray and the sand and the saltwater stinging in your face was a very gruesome experience. one i would not recommend to anybody. we thought about going inland a little bit because of the overwash starting to come on to the boardwalk here, and then we realized it's so dark because there's no power in this whole town. well, we didn't know what we'd run into because earlier we'd seen stop lights smashed on to the ground. we saw roof tiles flying off. it wasn't a pretty -- as a matter of fact, let me show you something. to give you an idea, chris, of how dangerous this is.

there's a sign up there that is flapping in the wind right now. you can see that is a metal sign and appropriately it says "body piercing." if that were to fly off and hit us, it would be doing some body piercing. and, in fact, my photographer, who is shooting this right now, his name is jimmy moller, was hit by a flying piece of sign. it cut him on the inside of his wrist. it cut his ring finger. i believe it was his ring finger or the one next to the ring finger. if you're not one who likes the sight of blood, you would not have wanted to be around us at the time. he's okay. he's shooting this live shot for us right now. we taped him up. we had a first aid kit the company provides. but that kind of gives you a really good idea of the conditions that we're in right now just trying to be safe. i think we are. we're on some of the highest ground in seaside heights right now and i'm told down the street lots of flooding, about five blocks down that street. lots of flooding because that's

the back bay, barnegat bay, where the high tide is on the bay even though now we're headed toward the low tide on the ocean which i'm maybe 100 yards away from right now behind my camera man. >> well, brian thompson, you have been doing amazing reporting. i've been watching you throughout the day and into the evening. we appreciate you still being up and with us, and be careful out there. one thing we should say because brian was pointing out that sign that was flapping in the wind, we've been getting additional reports of some of the fatalities. one of them was a woman who was killed by a flying piece of debris. so tomorrow, if you're lucky enough to have power and you're watching this and one of the places that has been deeply affected by sandy, don't go outside. that's what officials are telling you. it's dangerous out there. most businesses will be shut down. so unless you have an emergency role, stay home. stay home in manhattan and many of the other major cities because they really need to be

able to move around the emergency personnel and there are these pieces of debris that could still get hit by a wind gust and next thing you know someone like that unfortunate woman finds herself a statistic. a fatality in this terrible, deadly and costly storm. we'll continue our coverage right after this. it smoking wit. when the doctor told me that i could smoke for the first week... i'm like...yeah, ok... little did i know that one week later i wasn't smoking. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, tell your doctor if you have new or worse symptoms.

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one of the hardest hit cities feeling the impact of superstorm sandy is hoboken, new jersey, right across the hudson

river from here in manhattan. a city of about 50,000 people. and joining me on the phone is dawn zimmer who is the mayor of hoboken. thanks for being with us once again now. this is not highly unusual for hoboken to flood, but have you ever seen anything quite like what you're experiencing tonight? >> well, we've never seen anything quite like this where we have the city of hoboken breached by the hudson river on both sides of the city. the north and the south. and right now as we speak we have two firemen, you know, a fire company that is lit rerall having to row a boat. we got a call about a potential fire transformer on fire and fauling into a building. we're trying to check it out. we were hoping to get the national guard in here. unfortunately they haven't been able to make it up to hudson county and so we're doing the best that we can and hopefully, hopefully there's not a building on fire. we're waiting to find out, you know, and it's been a major

challenge. we've got live wires down throughout the city. pse&g wasn't able to get in here. so we're doing the best we can. we do have, you know, some good news to share. we've, you know, working together as a community, seniors, we were able to get out and get one senior to the hospital who's on oxygen. three others we got to backup shelter location. they were down to about two hours of oxygen. now they're in a very safe location. four seniors we definitely protected their lives so we feel really good about that right now. but just waiting to hear word on exactly what is happening with this transformer and, you know, really concerned about, again, these live wires that are out there and people getting out and thinking they can walk through the floodwaters and we still have live wires on the street. that's a major concern going into tonight and tomorrow morning when people start getting up and thinking that they can walk over hoboken and maybe they don't know that there's some live wires in the waters. we're trying to -- >> yeah, understanding that it's

very difficult to get around, obviously. do you have a good sense at this point, mayor, of how much of your city is underwater? >> i would say probably 50% of it. >> half of your city is under water right now? >> yes. that would be my estimate. i mean, when i was talking to the hospital, the hospital has water flowing to it. i mean, we've had to evacuate three fire stations. our municipal garage. our hospital is flooded as well. so hoboken's been hit very hard. very, very hard by this. we're coming together as a community and so far, you know, everyone is safe in hoboken. we're hoping there's, you know, not a fire that we're not able to reach right now. that's the major concern right now is we could have a fire starting up we're not able to reach because of the floodwaters and we just don't have the kind of vehicle to get in there. so we're trying to assess the situation right now as we speak. >> what kind of help are you getting from the outside? is it just impossible to get

anybody into hoboken right now? >> we were hoping the national guard was on their way, but for some reason they're not here and they're not coming tonight. so i'm not sure what the reasons are behind that, but we, you know, so the national guard is not coming in tonight. you know, maybe they'll be here in the morning. so we have not had outside resources coming in to help in hoboken. we have an amazing community between our police department, our fire department, emergency personnel, then we have an amazing group of search teams, community emergency response team that's been running the shelter and we've had about 50, 60 people in the shelter and -- >> i know at one point you were trying to actually get over to a shelter and you had some flashlights and there were some potentially a problem with a backup generator. what happened there, mayor? looks like we just lost the

mayor in hoboken. but obviously a continuing dangerous situation there and a developing one. if we get more information about exactly what's going on, particularly with that transformer, we will let you know. in the meantime, let's go to wnbc reporter greg sergel who's in long island. greg, what can you tell us about long island tonight? >> reporter: we're along the banks of the river here tonight in river head. i can tell you, we're lucky to say this flooding in this parking lot is about the worst of it where we are. the rain has stopped here. the winds kick up from time to time but for the most part have diminished tremendously. it appears that the worst of sandy is behind us here, but now comes the process of cleaning up and that will be a task of herculean proportions here on long island. the biggest issue, of course, restoring the power. the long island power authority, the utility here, is reporting

840,000 outages right now. that's 75% of their customers in the dark this morning. the utility's initial estimate of seven to ten days without power may in the end prove to be very conservative. the other issue here on long island, the condition of our roadways. in nassau county to the west of us, the county executive has ordered all of the roads closed until further notice. in addition, the state police have closed all of long island's parkways. the issue, obviof course, is sa. there are downed trees and downed power lines and flooding on many of those roadways and they want to make sure, excuse me, that emergency officials can get in there and try and deal with those issues before drivers return. one other issue we're dealing with out here is water problems. in two communities residents have been told not to drink the r water, not even to bathe in it. there's been an issue with the

generators that pump the water into homes so they're asking people not to use water so the water is available in case of emergencies like fires which we've seen on long island. a number of them caused by transformers. in one case a 90-year-old man had to be rescued from his home by an off duty new york city fireman after a transformer fire lit his home ablaze. so a lot of work to be done here on the island. a lot of cleanup still to come. it's going to take a while to deal with what sandy dealt us. >> how much have you been able to move around, greg, and can you give us a sense of what, if anything, you're able to see? >> reporter: we've been out here in riverhead for much of the day today. i have to tell you with all the parkways being closed, moving around has been very difficult. we tried to stay in this area to see the damage here, but for folks, i mean, the elected officials here on long island are telling people not to travel. the quote was, if you go out on

the roadways, you're putting yourself in harm's way, you're putting yourself at risk, so we've restricted our driving around for safety reasons. so, and that's the case i think all around the island tonight. >> greg cergol, thank you very much. in fact, one of the deaths we heard was reported was that a woman walked into some standing water that was electrified. that there was a downed power line. we also, i think we have a map we can show you, of fire island. it's very well known in this part of the country. along long island where greg is. this is a big beach resort. and we are told that they have definitely lost some homes into the ocean. some waterfront homes. the count that we have heard from the commissioner of the county there is that seven homes, at least, collapsed during the storm on fire island and their plan is to try to get in some first responders tomorrow by noon, but they can't even be sure that they can

safely do that. so they're working on some rough estimates. they don't even have a good count. right now, they say that much of fire island is covered in 4 feet of water. that they had some helicopters earlier that they had hoped to be able to bring in and land, but they are told, and obviously trying to do some rescues but they were not able to do that. there are a lot of seasonal residents there but the people they were trying to rescue were year-round residents. again, tomorrow, they're going to make a big push to get in there, to see what they can see. but a very bad situation on fire island with at least seven homes, they believe, that have collapsed and gone into the ocean. and some people who stayed there who were looking to be rescued. a short time ago, i spoke to ida siegel of wnbc tv. she is in lower manhattan where the power is out. >> reporter: with every passing moment the water receives further. to show the flooded water, we're

pushed well into the northbound lanes of the west side highway. at its deepest point where we are on betsy street this is not even a foot of water. south of where we are there's a car parked on the west side highway. the flood water stops another 30 feet south. however, i want to bring you over to the north here on the west side highway. that's where the water gets even deeper. i'm looking at, say, a street sign that one-way street sign. random guess, i'm going to say that's maybe 2 feet, maybe even 3 feet of water over there. to the south we've got water receding. to the north the water is still very deep and treacherous. one person who was passing the brooklyn battery tunnel said he could see the water funneling into the tunnel as if it was going down a drain. that's how much water going down into the battery tunnel. >> ida siegel reporting for us. and elsewhere in new york city, in battery park city, michelle franzen is there. that is the lower tip of

manhattan where the storm surge hit a record high of over 13 feet. what can you tell us from there? >> reporter: yeah, certainly, chris. the waters have receded from battery park city and along the walkway. as it's known here. as you mentioned, the historic flooding, 14 feet. the last time -- the last time they had had that situation was back in 1821. so it was a big, big massive, massive wave of water that came in during that surge. what we do know is that that water, of course, we're hearing more from the mpa, the mass transit authority here in new york city about the subway system and how it's been compromised. many of the lines there. and they're talking about how the subway system over 108 years old how they're just now starting to get in there and assess the damage and it seems to be very severe, very extended

that they'll have to go in and fix that situation. back here in lower manhattan, battery park city, of course, this is part of the area, the evacuation area that was on the list. many people here either if they did stay in this area, they probably had to leave at some point because the power was turned off in this area. and that's a whole, you know, other issue that they'll have to face. you know, con edison, the utility, systemically shutting down certain parts of the city. before this storm, all the way, you know, moves through here. so it would be easier for them in the end to restore that power. so we've got a lot of issues. this night is not over. i can tell you, chris, being inside the satellite truck, the massive truck, itself, with a satellite dish, of course, we've had to put that down because of these wind gusts and can't operate and the truck is just rocking back and forth. the sustained winds are still

pretty powerful and so far not giving up. then you've got the gusts on top of that. so it's going to be a long time night on top of everything that's going on. >> all right. michelle, you stay safe where you are and i've just been given an update on the midwest effects of sandy. and we have some pretty wide ranging information that we haven't gotten before. let me just go through it for you because we've been talking mostly about the eastern seaboard but it's really having an impact in a lot of other places. the chicago lake shore, there is a flood warning. it goes into effect at 1:00 -- well, so it went into effect at 1:00 this morning. it will continue until 4:00 p.m. wednesday. waves of 16 to 22 feet they're saying are likely to build along the cook county shoreline. indiana, they're are expected t be high gusty winds there. as high as 50 miles per hour across parts of indiana. while the state is sending

utility crews to other parts of the east coast. extreme high winds in northwest ohio, from 30 to 40 mile per hour with gusts of up to 70 miles per hour are possible along the lake through tuesday afternoon. that is from the national weather service in cleveland. also, the ohio turnpike have issued a high wind band from 5:00 today, continue through tomorrow morning. that means a lot of big trucks and trailers traveling on the turnpike will not be allowed to go. we saw there was a pileup elsewhere, so that's a big concern. in michigan, 23,000 people without power there. michigan utilities say high winds have knocked out power to those homes and businesses and they actually expect more to come as the severe weather pushes through that state. and finally, wisconsin, partial evacuation in the village of

pleasant prairie due to sandy. dangerous high waves of 14 to 18 feet expected along lake michigan. so, again, this story still developing even as we have nearly 6 million customers without power on the east coast. it is 1:54 here on the east coast. we will take a quick break and be back with more continuing coverage on msnbc. or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use, it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing. you walk into a conventional mattress store, it's really not about you.

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good morning, thank you for staying with us. it is now almost 2:00 in the morning on the east coast. this is a region that is feeling widespread effects of a superstorm named sandy. at this hour, we're looking at close to 7 million people all along the eastern seaboard without power.

these are new numbers. nearly 7 million people and it won't be until the early morning hours that we'll be able to get our first real look at all the damage that has been left behind. sandy made landfall just south of atlantic city on monday night and she easily became one of the largest storms ever to hit the u.s. at one point, the wind field of this storm stretched from south carolina all the way up to the canadian border. now, some of the worst flooding has taken place right here in new york city. that's what you're looking at. ground zero in downtown manhattan. the part of it that's still a construction site. you an see the water just raced into it. here's what it looked like a few blocks away. one of the major transit points into new york city from nearby brooklyn. totally flooded tonight. not clear at this point when that tunnel will be able to re-open. same story in new jersey. this is a path train station in hoboken. no match for the raging floodwaters coming from the hudson river.